Boy Butter Blog

A Blog about being a young, gay entrepreneur in the 21st Century. Fighting friction with a mix of social and personal lubrication.

  • Willkommen Boy Butter nach Berlin
    Well just arrived late morning to Berlin and it is so exciting. I am here to exhibit and sell Boy Butter from a booth at the Folsom Europe Street Festival this Saturday from 12 noon to 9 pm, so if anyone is around, please visit the Boy Butter Booth which located on the Lane 2, Booth # 15, (I included a layout map of the festival below). I have been as busy as a Berlin bee could be postering up the Gay village. I'm also, visiting stores and meeting friendly international out of towners and directing them to my booth. I am staying in a fabulous apt in the heart of the Gay Village, Schöneberg, and I planted my Boy Butter flag right in the heart of it all, just to make a point.

    Check out some major Guerilla Marketing Photos:

    This is the balcony of the apt I am staying at courtesy of my wonderful Russian friends from Moscow, Garry and Sergei. This flag is hanging above the most popular gay cafe and restaurant in Berlin.
    I love that this is a poster friendly town, 
    cause I brought some posters along to spread the butter.
    Old School BB Poster,
     "Try Squeezing some into your tight Agenda today!"
    The internationally loved "It's like Buttah" poster, 
    which always catches the wandering eye.

    As promised a Map of Folsom Europe Saturday Sept 4th Noon-9pm 



  • Awesome RV trip through Olympic National Park
    We just returned from an amazing RV camping adventure trip to the rain forests, rivers, mountains and lakes of the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. We stayed in pristine camp grounds and toured almost the entire Olympic National Park area of the Peninsula, from hiking through the Hoh Rainforest to swimming miles and miles in crystal blue glacier lakes which were magical, enlivening and extremely frigidly cold and enlivening. Please check out some beautiful pictures of the RV trip below.

    Boy Butter RV Camping in the super obvious 30" foot Cruise America Motor Home, 
    which was like driving a motel room (with kitchen) around
    BMcG driving the RV
    Whale Skull at a Ranger Station  

    A glacier lake, Lake Quinault 
    Waving back before my swim at Quinault Lake
    Cold swimming in Quinault Lake
    You might be able to see me in the middle of Lake Cushman waving back.
    Big Creek River
    I admit it, when it comes to "Big Spruce" I'm a tree hugger
    Hoh Rainforest Stream
    Brendan's Hoh Rainforest hike 
    Hoh Rainforest scenery
    Beautiful little waterfall on the side of the road.
    Huge downed tree 
    Slug we almost stepped on.
    Beautiful forest tree lined patheway.
    Gorgeous woods view.


  • FHM South Africa: Donna Feldman on cover and 8 Page layout for October 2010
    Check out my super model sister Donna Feldman's 
    on cover and eight page spread on FHM South Africa for the October 2010 issue
          


  • Boy Butter hits Seattle on tour of Pacific Northwest
    Well we arrived late morning to Seattle, Washington as part of the Boy Butter tour of the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Over the next week we shall hit beautiful cities and national parks like, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympic National Park, Victoria and Vancouver in Canada before heading back to NYC. 
    Check out some of the photos of me and my better half, BMcG as we tour Seattle on our first day.

    First stop in Seattle, Capitol Hill, which is  Seattle's Gay Village,
     doing a little Guerilla Marketing.
    Seattle's famous Space Needle as seen from Capitol Hill.
    Brendan at the nations first Starbucks
     founded in 1971 at Pike Place Market.
    Seattle's famous Pike Place Market 
    with fisherman's wharf and farmer's market.
    Inside the delicious Pike Place Market.
    Seattle skyline.


  • Must See Video: Debating the Ground Zero Islamic Center


  • NYC: Protesters demonstrate for, against 'Ground Zero' mosque

    NEW YORK (AFP)---Several hundred protesters staged rival demonstrations Sunday for and against plans to build a mosque near the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks, some brandishing signs against Islam and others denouncing religious bigotry.   
    Though small in scale, the street protests reflect an intensifying national debate that has exposed a raw nerve over US attitudes toward Islam nearly nine years after Al-Qaeda militants flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people.  
    Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the mosque, the city council has approved the project for a community center, and President Barack Obama has invoked the constitution's guarantee of religious freedom.   
    But 61 percent of Americans disapprove of it, and opposition to the mosque has been taken up with fervor by conservative politicians like former Republican lawmaker Newt Gingrich who likened it to building a Nazi site next to the Holocaust memorial.   
    Daisy Khan, the executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which is behind the proposed Islamic community center and mosque, said Muslims are concerned about the tone of the debate.   
    "Because this is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. That's what we feel right now. It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned," she said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program.   
    Opponents have pressed for the community center's organizers to move to another location further from 'Ground Zero' in deference to the charged public sentiment. New York Governor David Patterson has even offered state land for an alternate site.   
    Karen Hughes, a former White House communications director who had urged then-president George W. Bush to visit a mosque shortly after the 9/11 attacks to reassure Muslims, Sunday urged Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his congregation to choose another site.
    Writing in the Washington Post, she said the debate was "less about our freedom of religion than about the common sense and uncommon courtesy sometimes required to come together as Americans."   
    Khan, who is married to the imam, said any decision to move from the privately owned site had to be carefully weighed.   
    "And we have to be cognizant that we also have a constitutional right. We have the Muslim community around the nation that we have to be concerned about, and we have to worry about the extremists as well, because they are seizing this moment," she said.  
    Meanwhile, protesters from one side and the other began gathering in lower Manhattan under a fine rain Sunday morning, taking up positions about 100 meters and two streets away from each other, but also worlds apart.   
    "Don't let Islam mark a victory with a Mosque," said a banner raised by protesters who gathered at the corner of the site of the proposed Islamic center, on a privately owned lot two blocks from "Ground Zero," the epicenter of the September 11 attacks.   
    "You can build a Mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a Synagogue in Mecca," said another placard.   
    A group of about 50 bikers in leather jackets roared in bearing the emblem of the New York Fire Department, many of whose members were killed during a doomed attempt to rescue people trapped inside the burning towers.   
    Joe O'Shay, a lawyer who wore a T-shirt covered with slogans against the mosque, tearfully said he had turned out to protest because "I am a New Yorker and I lost a nephew here."   
    Protesters waved American flags as Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blared from loudspeakers.   
    Organizers distributed signs with the inscription "Sharia" in bloodlike red letters.   
    Two streets away, a small crowd about the same size called for tolerance, their signs defending freedom of religion and pleading for acceptance of immigrants of all faiths.   
    Their signs said "Down with religious bigotry," "Bigotry is UnAmerican" and "Repudiate Islamophobia!" 


  • Read my Travel Column in Ambiente Mag: Miami of the Middle East
    Check out my first travel column about my recent trip to Israel from Ambiente Magazine, a Miami based magazine that caters to the Hispanic Gay community.

    Photos from the Ambiente Article
    Me under an arch in Caesaria
    Old City wall of Jerusalem
    Me at the Dead Sea
    Fortress in old city of Jerusalem


  • COMPETE, The Gay Sports Magazine: Eyal Feldman presents checks to SAGE.
    Last month, Eyal Feldman, the NY-based founder of Boy Butter products, swam across Israel's six-mile (10km) Sea of Galilee, the largest body of water in the country, to raise money for two charities, the Jewish Home for the Aging and SAGE (Seniors Active in a Gay Environment). Last Wednesday, Aug. 11, Eyal presented a check for $1,750 to SAGE's Executive Director Michael Adams. 
    "Despite advances in LGBT civil rights, many senior care providers never stop to consider that their older clients may be lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) - and even those who do may not know how to provide services in culturally-sensitive ways. As a result, LGBT seniors often avoid seeking needed services out of fear of discrimination. The tendency for LGBT seniors to go "back in the closet" is particularly pronounced in situations where they are most vulnerable - such as when accessing home health care or residing in assisted living or residential care facilities. One study indicated that LGBT seniors may be as much as five times less likely to access needed health and social services because of their fear of discrimination from the very people who should be helping them.
    This type of social isolation has an enormous impact in the health and well-being of LGBT seniors. With LGBT seniors twice as likely to live alone than heterosexual seniors, more than four times as likely to have no children, the informal caregiving support we assume is in place for older adults may not be there for LGBT elders."
    For more information on SAGE or to make a donation, please visit www.sageusa.org


  • Cat fight caught on film: Billy vs. Lily
    I was lucky enough to catch a rare cat fight on camera. All this happens in 90 seconds, they go from two peaceful kittes hanging out, then in a matter of seconds an all out cat fight ensues. My two feline fighters are William J. Kittens aka Billy,a 8 year old Tabby versus Lily D'Kat a svelt energetic and box loving tortoise shelled cat. Check out the video (sorry about the poor quality of this video) but I have better photos of this rare hilarious moment.

    Billy and Lily sharing a peaceful moment
    Bam! Bam! Bam!
    This is comfortable.


  • This week in History - First Jews arrive in New Amsterdam
    This week in history - The first Jew set foot in New York - August 1654.


    In search of freedom to worship and equal opportunities, Jacob Barsimson set sail from Holland to American on July 8, 1654, to become the first Jew to set foot in New York. ThePear Tree docked in New Amsterdam on August 22 that same year, and 23 Jews from Dutch Brazil followed Barsimson’s example and went on to establish the first Jewish settlement in the United States.

    However, Barsimson and the others found that New Amsterdam was no different from whence they came. Governor Peter Stuyvesant treated them as separate citizens; they couldn't engage in retail trade, practice handicrafts, hold public position, serve in the militia or practice their religion in a synagogue or in gatherings. Along with the other Jews, Barsimson, presented a petition to Gov. Stuyvesant for the right to buy a burial plot, which was denied because there was no immediate need for it. However later, under pressure from Holland's Amsterdam Jews, Stuyvesant granted them this right.

    On September 22, 1654, Stuyvesant wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce to complain about the presence of Jewish refugees from Brazil who had recently arrived in New Amsterdam. He felt that they were blasphemers of the name Christ and that they would infect the colony with trouble.

    In the meantime, Barsimson and other New Amsterdam Jews kept putting pressure on Stuyvesant for full citizenship rights. They insisted on the right to serve in the militia and guard the walls of the city to protect the settlers and cattle, which were kept inside the walls at night, from the raids and attacks of the Indians and the New England settlers. Thanks to several influential Jews in Dutch West India Company who pressured the Governor, Jews received these rights in April, 1655.

    In 1664, When the British conquered New Amsterdam and changed its name to New York, the Jewish settlers continued to enjoy their previous rights. However, it was only in 1697 that a Simon Valentine became the first documented Jewish landowner, which entitled him to vote.

    Thanks to the actions of these brave settlers, today’s New York Jewish population is some two million, second only to Israel.